Virodene

Controversy

Fraudulent credentials

Olga Visser claimed she was a full professor and head of the department of New Technologies in Medicine at Moderna University in Lisbon, Portugal, but officials insisted there is no record of her on the faculty or even of such a department.

Human trials

On several occasions the Vissers conducted human trials without any authorisation from the appropriate health authorities.

Political interference

In 1997, the researchers were allowed to make presentations to the South African Cabinet. They received support from Thabo Mbeki, then South African deputy president and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the health minister at the time. Mbeki criticised the Medicines Control Council, stating that "it became more and more difficult to understand the attitude adopted by the MCC" and that "I and many others will not rest until the efficacy or otherwise of Virodene is established scientifically" in direct opposition to the rejection of human trials by the Medicines Control Council.{{Cite web | access-date =2007-09-27 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070404012704/http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mbeki/1998/virodene.html |archive-date = 2007-04-04}}

In the same letter Mbeki went as far as suggesting that parties who caused the controversy surrounding Virodene wanted to create the AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa:

Often I have wondered whether those who have generated sand storms with the greatest enthusiasm, did not, in fact, seek to achieve precisely this result!|Thabo Mbeki|}}

Some analysts pointed out that the mere involvement of senior government officials in a regulatory process for which there exists well established regulatory bodies such as the Medicines Control Council could only ever serve to open up the process to charges of maladministration.{{cite news | access-date = 2007-09-27

Funding

ANC

In 1999 it was revealed that several businessmen with close ties to Mbeki —by then President of South Africa— such as Max Maisela, invested heavily into Virodene companies.{{cite news |access-date = 2007-09-27 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081030063327/http://www.aegis.com/news/dmg/2002/MG020610.html |archive-date = October 30, 2008

Maisela was on Mbeki's "consultative council" during Mbeki's tenure as Deputy President and at the time of the investments headed Negotiated Benefits Consultants (NBC) which was owned by Worldwide Africa Holdings a company co-founded by Wiseman Nkhuhlu, then presidential advisor to Mbeki.

Reports alleging investment from source close to government again surface in 2007. The fresh reports by the newspaper The Saturday Star suggested investments between 2000 and 2001 that tapered off after the trials in Tanzania were aborted, allegations denied by the Presidency.{{cite news | access-date = 2007-09-27

Alcor Life Extension Foundation

Initial funding came from the controversial cryonics (low temperature preservation of humans after death) company Alcor Life. The funding came because of the main Virodene founder's research into the freezing and thawing of animal hearts.

References

References

1. (March 1997). "South African research into AIDS "cure" severely criticised". BMJ.
2. Staff Writer. (12 December 1997). "Who is … Olga Visser?".
3. (1997-06-13). "Virodene link to 'deep freeze'".